Royal Nightmare
by Princess-Lissa200
Summary: The story takes place after LS. Tasha does not accept the punishment she gets for her crimes. In an attempt to get out of her bad situation, she sends everyone at court to a parallel universe where she is in charge. Will Rose and her friends manage to find a way back to the real world before it is too late?
1. Chapter 1

**Authors note: Hey guys, this is my first fanfiction. The main idea is inspired by season one of** _ **Once upon a time**_ **. I hope you like it.**

 **Disclaimer: I don´t own Vampire Academy**

 **Chapter 1**

 **RPOV**

"Her Majesty: Queen Vasilisa Dragomir", someone announced. "Don´t worry Liss, I know you can do this." I tried to reassure my best friend. Even without our bond I knew that Tasha´s trial wasn´t something she was looking forward to. "I hope so." was all she said before putting on a mask of pure confidence. Being queen of the whole Moroi society meant that she couldn´t show any weaknesses no matter how hard a situation might be. I wanted to say something more, just to make sure that she really was going to be okay. But she was already walking through the door in front of us, the whole time making sure to hold her head up high. Like the good guardian I was, I followed her without hesitation as a silent shadow. When she finally reached her thrown I took my place on the wall behind her.

While the rest of the councilmembers were announced I let my gaze glide over the crowed that had come today to find out the true identity of their former queen´s murderer. Well, "find out" wasn´t quiet the truth. It was more like an official confirmation that Natasha Ozera was indeed guilty. The first person who caught my eye was Christian, which was no surprise considering how miserable he looked. I didn´t blame him. Tasha had been Christian´s only family ever since his parents had turned Strigoi. If this meeting was hard for Lissa, it was hell for Christian. Next to him sat Jill who made some desperate attempts to comfort him. It was kind of cute considering that she wasn´t in the best situation either. Though her problems were of a complete different nature. After I had found out that she was Lissa´s long lost sister, Jill had been pushed in the royal Moroi world which she still had trouble getting used to. The fact that Lissa hadn´t made any attempts of sisterly bonding yet didn´t make things any better. I thought about a way to make them feel more comfortable around each other until something else in the room demanded my full attention.

Or rather somebody. Tasha walked through the door. I had to admit that for somebody, who was as good as dead she put on a good show. If I hadn´t known any better, I would have thought that she was celebrating something. She waved her hand at the gathering crowed as if she was some kind of superstar and even tried to start a casual conversation with Dimitri who escorted her alongside Eddie. If anything he seemed annoyed but his guardian mask didn´t allow me to be sure about this. As I watched her, I tried to figure out my feelings about this situation. One part of me, the bigger part hated Tasha for what she had done and wanted her dead as soon as possible. But when I looked at her now, I realised that despite every good reason there also was a little part of me that still liked her. I had always admired her passion to fight for herself and her never ending attempts to knock reason into the heads of some royals. Well, at least I had done this before she had started to murder queens.

After Tasha had taken her seat the trial began. I didn´t really listened to what was said, mainly because I already knew how this was going to end. Instead I observed the room for any possible threats and reassured myself every now and then that Lissa´s emotions didn´t get too messed up. It wasn´t easy without the bond but my instincts told me that she had herself under control. For some reason Tasha took some twisted satisfaction in keeping on her happy act for the whole time. She didn´t even stop when Lissa spoke out the evitable: "Natasha Ozera, you are sentenced to death because of murder and high treason" I knew that it was hard for Lissa to speak these words out loud but Tasha just shrugged her shoulders. "Lissa sweetheart, no need to be so formal around me. By the way, I found out something new about spirit. How about we have a little chat in your chambers?"

What? After her way to happy attitude over the last few hours, I hadn´t thought that Tasha would surprise me even more. I was pretty sure that what she had just said wasn´t true. I mean if she really had new information, she would have told us way sooner. I also had no idea where the hell she could have found out anything that we didn´t know already. However I had a bad feeling, that she was planning something, something I wouldn´t let her get away with.

A shocking thought crossed my mind. _…in your chambers_ Tasha had said. It was the same place where she had murdered Queen Tatiana. Was this a plan to kill Lissa as well? The thought was so horrible that I acted on pure instinct. In a flesh I stood in front of Lissa half expecting Tasha to pull out a gun from somewhere. "Lady Ozera" I said and was surprised about the calm voice I somehow managed to use "As Queen Vasilisa´s guardian I have to decline your offer." "Rose, don´t you think that your friend is old enough to decide this without your advices?" she asked me with a smile that was probably supposed to look friendly. But in her eyes I could see something which I didn´t like. I couldn´t even say what it was except that it made my bad feeling even worse. "You won´t go anywhere near her!" I screamed at her. Every lingering good feelings I might have had for her a few hours ago were blown away now. Before Tasha had the opportunity to answer me, Lissa´s voice interrupted us "This meeting is over! Guardians, please take Lady Ozera to my office." Of course Tasha had to have the last word. "See you later" she said casually before she was escorted out.

After I had given Tasha one last hateful glare, I quickly turned around to follow Lissa who was already heading for the side door we had entered through earlier today. As soon as we were alone Lissa let her confident queen mask drop. "Rose was this really necessary?" She didn´t tell me what exactly she meant because we both knew what she was talking about. Guardians were supposed to protect the moroi but when there wasn´t a real threat, they were expected to minimize the attention they drew to themselves. With my little outburst just a few moments ago I had just done the exact opposite. Suddenly I felt foolish. Lissa hadn´t been in danger at the meeting and even if she decided to talk to Tasha about whatever information she claimed to have there would be enough guardians to ensure her safety. "I´m sorry Liss, I guess the fact that she nearly shoot you makes me a bit paranoid sometimes." I admitted. "It´s okay, I guess I can´t be angry at you for trying to protect me" she said and just like that everything between us was fine again.

Lissa decided that it couldn´t hurt to listen to what Tasha had to say and despite my bad feeling that I couldn´t really explain, I had to agree. As long as there were some guardians around, Lissa would be safe. We reached her office at the exact same time, Tasha, Dimitri and Eddie did. Tasha apparently hadn´t gotten the message that Dimitri wasn´t interested in her and made some seductive comments while I was watching. With every bit of self-control I had, I managed to ignore her. It was not the right time to get distracted by Tasha´s annoying games. We entered through the door and quickly crossed the waiting area.

But just before we could enter the actual office, Tasha suddenly spun around. I stiffened and couldn´t help to move a little closer towards Lissa. "Lissa I´d like to talk to you _in private_ " she said. I needed a second to understand that _in private_ meant without guardians. Did this bitch really think that I was oblivious enough to leave her alone with Lissa? Lissa seemed to have the same thoughts. "Lady Ozera" she began "I´m sure you understand that in spite of the current situation that´s not possible." I noticed that she was in her queen mode again. It was her way to hide the discomfort she felt around Tasha. Tasha didn´t seem to be bothered by that. "Call me Tasha and of cause I do understand your reasons, but don´t you think _one_ guardian will do the job?" she asked. "That´s enough" an angry voice announced, my own I realised. "If you really have to say something, do it now instead of wasting our time!"

Suddenly there was a pair of strong arms wrapped around me. I didn´t need to look behind me to know whom they belonged to. "Roza, there is no need to worry. Lissa is safe and nothing will change that." Dimitri told me in a calm voice. After all this time he still had this strong effect on me that just made me want to forget everything around me. I looked up in those endless brown eyes, which held so much love for me. I knew he was right. Even with only one guardian, Tasha wouldn´t have a chance to harm Lissa. I gave him a small smile, before Tasha´s annoying voice brought me back to reality. "How about we leave these two lovebirds out here while the rest of us goes inside to start our little talk." If I wasn´t mistaken, there was a trace of anger attached to her voice, which was ironic considering she still hadn´t shown any signs of worry about her own death. Did she really care more about Dimitri´s love life than her execution? If Lissa noticed Tasha´s anger towards me, she didn´t show it. Instead she agreed to Tasha´s condition, to only take Eddie inside, probably because she grew impatient to find out what Tasha knew about spirit. I still had this very bad feeling about all this, but some reasonable part inside me convinced me that I was just paranoid. Nonetheless I couldn´t stop myself from giving Dimitri a passionate kiss, just before Tasha left for Lissa´s office in hope of making her jealous.

When the door had closed behind her and our friends, Dimitri and I stood alone in the small room which separated Lissa´s office from the hallway. If we hadn´t been on duty, this situation probably would have led to a hot make out session. But since we _were_ on duty, we couldn´t get distracted. So we tried to put some space between us by not standing guard at the same door. Dimitri took the spot next to the door that led to the hallway, while I positioned myself next to the entrance of Lissa´s office.

While I stood there, I was tempted to just burst through the door beside me. My fears that Tasha would somehow find a way of harming my best friend still hadn´t vanished. Hell, they were even worse than before. I had hoped to at least catch some phrases of their conversation through the closed door, which now turned out to be impossible since it was made out of some absolutely soundproof material. _It´s all going to be okay. Tasha won´t get past Eddie if she is dump enough to try anything stupid._ I told myself over and over to make sure that I wouldn´t freak out.

My thoughts were rudely interrupted when Adrian burst into the room. Even though he most definitively wasn´t a threat, Dimitri´s guardian instincts made him jump in front of Adrian, so he was blocked from the rest of the room. Ever since we had broken up, I never really knew how to act around Adrian, so I usually avoided him as good as I could. I wondered what he was doing here but didn´t need long to get my answer. "Where is Lissa?" Adrian shouted panicked, while he tried without any success to find a way around Dimitri, who was still blocking his way. "She doesn´t have time right now" was Dimitri´s short answer. "Is she with Tasha?" Adrian questioned further after he had finally given up on getting past my Cowboy. When Dimitri didn´t answer him immediately, he took this as a yes and continued "You have to get her as far away from Lissa as possible! I saw her aura at the trial! She´s planning something!"

His words didn´t have any effect on Dimitri. He probably thought that Adrian was either drunk or had used too much spirit. I however was a different case. I don´t even know, if it was Adrian or just my fears and bad feelings that had already been in my head before. All I know for sure is that in this moment the little self-control that had managed to hold me back to this point, broke into million pieces. With all the power my body held, I pulled the door next to me wide open and jumped inside, expecting to see the worst. I was glad that Dimitri was too busy with calming down Adrian, too stop me. I was stopped however by Eddie, who had been set on alert by the sudden movement. He was ready to fight against everybody who wanted to hurt Lissa, but when he realised that it was just me, he stepped out of my way to give me a good view over the room. I was relieved to see that Lissa was unharmed. I felt safe enough to turn around and close the door behind me without having to fear for her life. After I had done that, I took a deep breath to calm myself down, and investigated the situation in front of me further.

Lissa sat behind a table with Tasha sitting opposite of her. They both were holding onto a silver necklace that lay between them. I couldn´t see Tasha´s face, because she had her back turned towards me, but I assumed that just like Lissa, she was steering into nothing. Back when I and Lissa had have the bond, I had seen myself a few times while I was in her head. The dreamy and absent expression I had worn back then, was now mirrored on Lissa´s face. She and Tasha were both sunken deep enough into their own world, to not even notice my presence. "What are they doing?" I asked, when my bad feelings came creeping up again. "They are…" Eddie never had the chance to finish his sentence, because the next moment the world around us seemed to explode.

It all happened so fast that I will never be able to tell what happened exactly in the next few moments. I felt a strong wave of energy that blew all of us to the ground as if we were nothing. Then there was a blinding light that filled the room. The whole situation reminded me a little bit of how it had felt like when Dimitri was restored from being Strigoi, except that this time it felt so much more powerful. Dark spots danced in my vision, while I was slowly losing consciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors note: Hey guys, thank you so much for your reviews. Chapter 2 is from Sydney´s point of view, but the next Chapter will be from Rose´s perspective again.**

 **Disclaimer: I don´t own Vampire Academy**

 **Chapter 2**

 **SPOV**

I steered at my phone, still not believing what I´d just heard. It couldn´t be true, it just wasn´t possible. "Sorry would you repeat this, please?" I asked, because I was sure that there was some kind of misunderstanding. "You heard me right" Abe Mazur told me and sounded uncharacteristically tired. When I didn´t answer right away, he continued. "Everybody at court disappeared, vanished, just like that without a trace! No one knows where they are!" At the end of his little speech he shouted the words loud enough to make my ears hurt, not that I really cared about that at the moment.

 _Everybody at court disappeared._ That meant Rose and Dimitri had disappeared as well. The thought that something had happened to them, was even more shocking, than the fact that something like this was possible at all. They were the reason, why I had started to question the alchemist believes about all Moroi and dhampirs being just _evil creatures of the night_. They couldn´t have just gone missing, all this had to be a sick joke. _…a joke_ , of course. None of that was real. Abe was probably just board and thought it was funny to scare me. I should have known that from the beginning. I waited and expected to hear him burst out laughing every moment now, but it didn´t happen.

"Miss Sage, are you still there?" he asked. I got angry. Didn´t he realise that his behaviour was just unacceptable? On the other hand, it wasn´t really something new to me that Abe Mazur was the last person on earth who cared about good behaviour. "Mr. Mazur…" I started and planned on telling him what I thought about his ways of getting entertainment, but was interrupted. "Finally! We really have no time for your daydreaming", he hissed. Judging by the tone of his voice, I must have been deep in thoughts for a pretty long time, but what had he expected. "I only…" My attempt to defend myself was cut of bluntly. "Never mind, all you need to know at the moment, is that we need an alchemist, to help us figuring this out. Meet us at 12 am! I´ll send you the address later."

I was confused. If he and whoever else he´d been talking about were actually going to meet me, there had to be something more to this, than just Abe´s personal entertainment. The thought brought all the fears back that I had managed to suppress by telling myself that nothing about Abe´s words was true. Before I could process this realisation, he spoke again. "By the way, I already talked to your superiors. They told me you don´t have any assignment at the moment and agreed to send you, so don´t tell me about the I´m-to-busy-bullshit again." After that he broke the connection without any goodbye.

To say that Abe was always polite to me, would have been a straight lie but this was just rude, even for his standards _. His only daughter just disappeared and no one knows where to find her. Who could act as if nothing happened in his situation?_ A nagging voice in my head told me. As much as I hated to admit it, this explanation actually sounded reasonable. I guessed that I had no other choice than to take him serious. But first I needed to make some alchemist phone calls. Abe had been right about me not having an assignment at the moment. The reason for that was my involvement in breaking Rose out of jail recently. Most alchemists still didn´t trust me, so I was surprised that they gave me a task like this. My phone calls didn´t take much time and basically only confirmed what Abe had already told me. When I had finished, I found a message from him on my phone. In it he gave me the addresses of the house, where I would meet him and a nearby motel I could stay at until he wouldn´t need me anymore. Both places were in Pennsylvania and could be reached from court in a three-hour drive.

I quickly started packing, since it was probably best when I left as soon as possible. When everything I´d need in the near future was in my car, I drove away. It was still early in the morning. The sun had just started to rise and made the whole world look so much more alive. If I hadn´t driven so fast, I could have heard the birds singing. Everything seemed to be so… peaceful. In light of my current situation, it almost felt unreal. Nonetheless it helped me to slowly calm down. _Everything was going to be fine. We would find out what had happened and then save everyone._

After a long drive with only two stops to drink a small coffee, I finally arrived at my destination. I still had about an hour until I would meet Abe and the others. So I used the time to check in at the motel. Since I was technically here on business, the alchemists paid for everything. After a quick observation of my room, I was sure that I wouldn´t have any problems staying here. From my comfortable bed I had a good view on a big TV and through the window I spotted a nearby lake. Near the entrance was a door, which led to a small bathroom. It wasn´t anything luxurious, but like I said, I wouldn´t have any problems staying here. When I´d just finished to put my clothes in the wardrobe, it was time to go.

I didn´t need long, so five minutes later I stood in front of a nice looking house. It was this kind of house where you would expect to find an average family instead of a mafia boss who drank human blood to survive. Just because I thought about Rose and Dimitri as my friends, that didn´t mean I felt comfortable about Moroi diet. After I rang the bell the door was opened and I stood face to face with… "Sonya? Weren´t you at court, aren´t you supposed to be…" I trailed of because it was still too hard for me to talk about what had happened. As far as I knew, she had moved to court to live with her boyfriend Mikhail Tanner after Vasilisa had become queen.

For a moment I pondered that my earlier thoughts about Abe just taking fun in scaring me had actually been true, but only until I saw the grim expression on her face. "Mikhail and I were on a date outside court. We were the first people who discovered the tragedy." she told me. "Oh… I´m sorry" I said and somehow felt uncomfortable, not because she was a Moroi, but because I couldn´t imagine how hard this must have been for her. Knowing that a huge group of people had just disappeared without a trace was freaking me out, but discovering and actually seeing it must be so much worse. Sonya gave me a small smile. "It´s not your fault. How about we get in and talk about our next moves?" Right, the sooner we started, the sooner we would know what had happened.

While Sonya led me to the living room, I couldn´t suppress an eye roll about the number of guardians I saw. Most royal Moroi hadn´t more than two guardians but Abe never travelled with less than four of his bodyguards. At first I couldn´t see anything because the curtains were closed, probably to provide the Moroi from too much sunlight. Only now I realised that for them it was the middle of the night, because of their nocturnal schedule. The fact that they still held this meeting was another reminder of how serious this situation was. When my eyes finally got used to the dim light, I recognized two men sitting at a table. The man who sat near to the door was Mikhail Tanner. He didn´t wear his guardian uniform but something about his watchful expression made clear that not even a tiny mouse could leave this room without him noticing it. I didn´t even need to see the other man´s face to know who he was. As always Abe Mazur was dressed as if he wanted to win a prise for the most extraordinary outfit in the room. It was almost relieving to know that some things were never going to change.

After I had greeted them, they wasted no time on small talk and immediately filled me in on some more details. While we had our conversation, I grew more and more comfortable around them and could almost pretend that they were human. "When I saw no guardians at the gate, I immediately knew that something was wrong" Mikhail told us when we came to the point where he and Sonya had first discovered what had happened. "It was like there had been a massive spirit magic explosion. I could almost grab the magic from the air around me." Sonya added later. "Wait, are you saying that they disappeared by magic?" My words came out as a question but somehow I already knew the answer.

Magic, of cause. Why hadn´t I thought about this sooner. I guess it was just this alchemist part of me that thought that there always had to be a rational explanation for everything. "Of cause it was magic" Abe said and shoot me a look as if I was five years old. "What did you think? That a giant group of Strigoi kidnapped them without any signs that there had at least been a fight?" For them it seemed to be so obvious that I almost felt stupid, but then again for them magic was something completely normal, like eating or breathing. They couldn´t really blame me for not thinking as fast about it as they had.

An idea came to my mind. I ignored Abe´s comment and instead asked "You said it had to do something with spirit, right?" When Sonya nodded I continued "Maybe it was an accident. I mean you still don´t know much about spirit. Maybe the queen or this other spirit user at court did an experiment that went wrong." "I have my doubts about that." Sonya said "Lissa didn´t have time for any experiments with all the stuff about being the new queen and for Adrian it´s boring to explore spirit on his own. Also I´m pretty sure that even if they combine their powers, they´ll never be able to do something like this without more spirit users." Sonya´s logic made sense, not that this was helping much. As far as I knew Vasilisa or Lissa and Adrian had been the only two spirit users at court when it had happened. So when whatever had happened really was caused by spirit and they couldn´t have done it, not even if they had tried (what I didn´t think was very likely), then who had done it?

The thought that someone could have that much power seemed just not real. "There´s something else we need to tell you." Sonya interrupted my thoughts. "When Mikhail and I did a little investigation we found a necklace in the queen´s office. I´m not even sure if it has to do anything with this case, but what I am absolutely sure about is that it´s charmed with spirit in a way that feels at least very similar to the magic I felt in the air at court." She handed me a silver necklace. From what I could tell, there wasn´t anything unusual about it. At least I thought that until I took a closer look at its pendant. It was made of silver, like the rest of the necklace but engraved in it was a strange symbol, one I had seen before. I couldn´t believe what I was holding in my hands. It was _the cursed necklace_!

A few months ago the alchemists had reported it missing. Someone had managed to steel it from one of our best hidden bunkers. "Sydney, is everything okay?" I heard Sonya´s voice from far away, but the thoughts that raised through my head didn´t let me answer her. The alchemists tended to keep things from each other so I didn´t know why exactly they had hidden it before it went missing. All I knew for sure was that this thing could cause huge damage, if it got in the wrong hands.


End file.
